"Adam Lea" skrev i melding
...
On 17/09/2010 22:10, Bjørn Sørheim wrote:

..and to note that serious damaging and life threathening weather events
outside our (the west-ok) sphere sometimes get quite little
media-coverage
considering their scales compared to a similar event in the US, UK or
most
western countries.

Much of it depends on what else is going on in the world.

Often the UK media will cover US events if there is an increased
likelihood that British holidaymakers will be caught up in it, or if there
is a large damage bill/loss of life.

There may not have been anything about Karl up to now because yesterday
the storm was forecast to make landfall in a sparsely populated area.
There are more important things to report on than a hurricane hitting
desert. It is only earlier today that the storm jogged south and hit
Veracruz.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11342007

There will probably be something about Igor over the weekend if it causes
a lot of damage on Bermuda.

But the thing is:
If a loose collection of clouds were fairly quietly trundling along
the Carribean towards Texas or New Orleans, not developing,
BUT at the same time the weather models saying that it may not
OR certainly may anytime now - turn into a cat 3 (major)
hurricane, possibly even cat 4 (because of warm waters), then
you would be certain that all of the US press would know it
instanly once it happened and be ready for it with press reporting
from the spot. AND at the same time this will be communicated
all over the place to UK, Japan or Norway and we would know
about it. Certainly after Katrina.
Once the track led Karl(92L) towards the middle of Mexico the
story was much less interesting for the US media and the rest of
the world as US media has much more media influence than any other
country - especially so concerning hurricanes. And that has a lot
to do with being able to just sell stories like this...
Be also aware of that this part of Mexico is quite heavily populated
compared to much of the US Gulf coast, making ignoring
a Mexico landfall 'a bit' strange...

Bjørn Sørheim